When Doves Cry
by BehrBeMine
Summary: The ending of Dean and Rory.


Title: When Doves Cry  
  
Author: BehrBeMine (behrbemine@look.ca)  
  
Site: http://www.behrbemine.com/solemn/  
  
Feedback: Please? With a sparkling cherry on top?  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p  
  
Rating: PG (one curse word)  
  
Improv: #31 - - lonely, shimmer, guide, cerulean, malaise  
  
Summary: The ending of Dean and Rory.  
  
Pairing: Rory and Dean  
  
Spoilers: 'Chicken or Beef'  
  
Distribution: Mkay. Just let me know.  
  
Warning: Big-time angst. Can't help it; it's what I do.  
  
Author's Note: Title is a tribute to the mating of two doves, the romantic idea of everlasting things.  
  
Dedication: For the character of Dean. He's never been loved the way he deserves.  
  
   
  
- -  
  
i"Life is about change.  Sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's beautiful; but most of the time it's both."/i  -- Lana, 'Smallville'  
  
Last night is hazy, the memories that should be fresh in your mind gone blurry and stale from the liquor you swigged, coaxing you into a drunken oblivion from which you have now returned. Today is clear, your head aching but your mind seeing so much, seeing everything. More than anything, you'd like to go back to yesterday. If only you could.  
  
Luke looks at you strangely, and though he's a strange person, still it's unsettling. He knows something that you cannot now remember. His coffee concoction warms your tongue, and he sort of rushes you out of his apartment. That's no matter. You're in a hurry, anyway. You're late, and tired, and have a stomach churning, malaise in your thoughts and your bones. Pain eating you, swallowing you, tearing your insides to pieces over what you'd rather not pull to the forefront. You tell yourself it's the leftovers of the drinking last night. This you'll try to believe, wanting to shove down the longing for Rory's face, for one more kiss, one last tender touch.  
  
But one more is often too much to ask, and wanting it is a waste of time and murder on the soul.  
  
Such wantings and wishes bring nothing but woebegone thoughts that you don't have the capacity to store today.  
  
The morning of Stars Hollow is busy around you, Luke's diner fading further and further behind your retreating steps. Taylor stands out on the sidewalk in front of his ice cream store, arguing with a boy much younger than you.  
  
"I don't care if you dropped the spoon, you cannot have another one. If I give you another spoon, then the balance of spoons and bowls is disrupted, and I'll have to get rid of a bowl, because I cannot buy only one spoon, and to waste a bowl is a waste of money, and a waste of a perfectly good bowl, too. Plastic isn't as cheap as they say, you know, not when you want the profit I'm aiming for."  
  
Momentarily, you feel sorry for the kid receiving the lecture, but you move on. His suffering doesn't match up to your own.  
  
The sun shines in your eyes, spreading its shimmering rays that glare into your vision throughout a blue, blue sky. Blue skies signify good days. And that makes sense. Today is supposed to be one of the best days of your life. Faint traces of vomit stain the taste of your tongue, spoiling the moment of clarity, as if to be a reminder that today won't be as good as it should be. And that's all your fault, isn't it? You, with your questions that are too big and too drastic to be asking when you're eighteen years old.  
  
iWill you marry me?/i God. Tying yourself up in your own chains. Drastic, crippling, and permanent.  
  
The center of town is dressed for the occasion, the tablecloths for the reception as white as the bride's long dress. Matching, as if to guide those who don't know much to the church for the wedding borne of hasty teenage boy excitement, lacing up so many ties of regret.  
  
You've seen Lindsey's dress already. She was too excited not to model it for you. And she was lovely in her sunlit bedroom, spinning around to send her veil flying and to show you the back view. It's a gaudy dress, you have to admit, weighed down by one too many ribbons and sequins, so like a teenage girl. Rory would never wear such a dress, you knew, but you pictured her in it just the same. And swallowed over a bitter lump in your throat as you stared at the girl that was to replace Rory, to take the spot Rory gave up.  
  
You despise the name, Jess, of the boy who wooed her away. What kind of name is that for a boy, anyway? Jess, like the hiss from a snake, the badass with a shared fascination of writing notes in the margins of books you don't care to read. Especially now.  
  
People say that you never know what you have until it's gone. But you knew. Oh, how you knew. She was a gem, the diamond worth hanging onto, the puzzle piece that would grow to fit neatly into the jagged edges of yours. If only she had stayed to give that a chance.  
  
Life's too full of changing to ever hope to remain the same. You know this. But you also know so much else, like if you could find someone who became the other half of you, change wouldn't be so scary. Because they would catch you. You'd fall and fail, but you'd have your rock, your love, there to pick you up instead of letting you die. While others would barely cast you a glance in your misery, that great love of yours would look inside of you and see.  
  
You want this. You want this as bad as every other person in this world, and recognize that so few of us even come close. Someone you're so in love with that the two of you can speak through kisses, and whisper things to each other that no one else would understand.  
  
...Someone who will dress up, in full formal wear, and walk with you on a stage, presenting you to a rich society he is no part of. Even though he finds the idea, the costume, and pretty much everything else about such a social affair atrocious.  
  
You do things, for her, things you don't even believe in because you care for her feelings above your own.  
  
Your heart beats, one, two, three, in sync with memories, memories of her. From the first time you saw her, stumbling and dropping things in the school hallway, telling you that just when you've met her, she's going away.  
  
Feelings are a thing often kept inside, fueled by fear or a want for privacy, or pain that shouldn't be acknowledged. Feelings manifest themselves in you, and you feel them like small pricks on your arm now, needles nudging at your skin to make you realize that you cannot run from these feelings, and yet you know that you will. You'll try to ignore the sensations you need to stifle before they explode, taking you down with them in flames.  
  
Maybe it would have been easier if she hadn't been in town, if she hadn't run into you yesterday, tying your tongue up in knots that are still not unraveled. It was like you had died after she had gone, and only by seeing her again did you realize that she is what brings you to life.  
  
That's when you knew. Rather, when your heart recognized what you'd buried, but had known all along. The questions, the unsure quality of your insides, all was stopped, because all was clear. You were getting married, and not to the love of your life. Your first love that would be your last.  
  
Even when you wish otherwise, minutes tick by just the same. And though you want (need) the day to stop where it is and never go further, sooner than you can breathe, it's time. Time to get married.  
  
So reckless, so thoughtless of you, getting married at eighteen. Barely out of high school, barely having discovered what love is, and now you're pledging a vow in its essence.  
  
The church is still, the old organ creaking out ageless notes to fill the background with sound and rattle your nerves. You stand, still as death, dying, indeed. You want to move, but it wouldn't be right, and your feet aren't working now, anyway. They've gone numb, and it's almost as if they aren't even there.  
  
They aren't, but Lindsey is. The congregation stands, their excited voices blending into a buzz. Cameras flash and click as this girl that you watch walks down the aisle, so narrow, with her dad at her side. Her hair flows beneath her veil, shining with its health. She takes such good care of her hair.  
  
i(Rory cut her hair.)/i Suddenly it's all you can think of. Suddenly it's all that matters.  
  
It looks good, that style, framing Rory's face. Makes her very pretty. But it's Rory, and thus that goes without saying.  
  
You recognize those four pounding notes resonating from the organ repeatedly, slow and familiar... but not slow enough. Please, you beg, draw them out further. Make them last, make them last. Delay what will happen, because I cannot.  
  
You want to run, flee, escape. You want to be anywhere but here.  
  
So many of your thoughts are of Rory, of little insignificant things about her that you were given the privilege of knowing, because you know her. As her face ingrains itself, tattooing onto your brain, you pray for the sky to fall down on you, because you know that one day she'll touch it, and it's only a matter of her finding her feet and learning to fly.  
  
But you're stuck here; it is here where you'll always be. Who could have thought that such a small, charming town could hide such a dream that is ugly now and should never have been allowed to set fire.  
  
Heart murmurs within you are heard now, freed from their guarded traps from the aftereffects rising up in your body, reeking of bubbly, bitter alcohol that violates minds and bodies and wants to come back up as the chanting repetition of music comes to an end.  
  
Nausea overtakes you and you sway on your feet; so many things sink in. Here you are, standing at the head of the aisle, watching, waiting, waiting...  
  
You take your bride's hand, the gesture empty because you're not done waiting yet. Because she's not the one you were waiting for.  
  
That one, the one that got away, her body is absent from the church pews only half-full. She's moved on and is a million miles away, a different person now. She is no longer standing at your side and you are alone without her. iAlone/i.  
  
Does she remember? Does she remember any of it? Does she want to? iShould she?/i  
  
All you know is that you do, you remember every little piece and detail. And you can't stop.  
  
The universe, it screams, because it wants to know. Closure is a foreign thing in that there was none. The door wasn't shut; she just jumped through another one. There was only a blow-up on a small town dance stage, a iwhy/i when you shared the big news.  
  
And all she could say was, "Jess does not treat me like dirt!" With all that you had told her... that was all she had to say.  
  
Big news, yes. Oh, so very big.  
  
Big as her inquisitive cerulean eyes that aren't here to look on at you standing in this place where you've been grounded like a rock beneath a fast-moving stream. Instead those eyes of hers see nothing. An invitation thrown in your face, your need dismissed by a busy schedule or a need to keep moving on from something she doesn't see all the potential in what she had. What the both of you had together.  
  
Why isn't she here to save you when you cannot save yourself?  
  
The door of the church is supposed to open and slam, Rory rushing in, winded and tortured and confused as much as you are. It's supposed to slam so loud it echoes from the ceiling to the walls to the floor and back again, startling all with its abruptness. Please, let the door slam. It should slam, damnit. You mumble a plead under your breath, your lips moving just a little. iPlease, please... make things right again because nothing makes sense anymore./i  
  
You hear your voice break the silence of the building, your tone blank, though you try to bring forth the emotion required. "I, Dean, solemnly swear..." But you're not looking into Lindsey's eyes, and instead you focus in on a small mark on the wall behind her. You care for this girl, truly, you do. But not above all others. Not above Rory. Not even close.  
  
The ceremony, it's nearing the end now...  
  
iTill death to us part./i  
  
The key turns in the lock and now it's being thrown away. Married; joined, by law, two as one. Your loyalty is sealed to the girl you scarcely know before your eyes. And you've never felt so lonely.  
  
She's so happy now, as you should be, Lindsey letting forth a slight excited giggle that serves as a reminder of her age as your lips pull away from hers, from your first kiss as man and wife.  
  
iMan./i Are you a man? Her man. By law. The envelope has been sealed.  
  
And you think to yourself, she doesn't deserve this. She's radiant, and glowing, so young and so happy... She deserves someone who treasures her as she treasures you.  
  
She finds the eyes of her mother as the two of you walk back down the aisle together, arm-in-arm. And you remember Lorelai. Notice that she, also, isn't here.  
  
That's no surprise. She and Rory are attached at the hip. But that's what you liked about her, admired about her, envied about her. How watching the two partners in crime makes you want to warn the world, "Look out, here they come. Run! They zoom with a thousand quips and the roadrunner's speed." God help the deaf and mute who cannot keep up with their babbles of wit and good humor, inside jokes thrown into the mix, stirred together with a tank full of coffee, but only the good kind. Suit to taste, of course. The very best.  
  
Of course.  
  
The mischief twins that stoke anyone's craving when they leave the room, and even more so when they leave your life.  
  
You'll never be able to think of innumerable things, intricacies that you are so honored to know. Like the song and dance of oompa loompas again, not without a sour stomach that can't handle such off-beat memories of Rory, of them both.  
  
The reception has started. You're blinking your eyes, wondering how you got here, seated at this table, staring at the white tablecloth that greeted you this morning. iBefore./i You want the white to blur out the world, and take you with it. Relieve you from everything you've officially taken on. You're seated at the head table, subject to the eyes of so many people you know, rejoicing for you because they don't know that your insides haven't melted into a warm puddle of goo, but rather have frozen over, in painful falling chunks like out of an ice cube tray.  
  
"Want me to fill up your ice cube trays?" you asked once, in the Gilmore kitchen, your face staring into the freezer. "They're empty."  
  
"No, don't bother," Lorelai said. "It's been so long since we've used them - - actually we've never used them, except for the first time we put them in there and the first time we took them out - - do you know how hard it is to get the damn things out of their squares? They fit in there, squished in so tight as if they were glued, held in by like evil cubbies, built by angry kindergartners with divorced parents and anger issues just to pass anger issues on to other people."  
  
"Well why don't you run a little warm water over them? It helps them to soften up enough to pull them out." Lorelai looked at you strangely, then, searching for your second head. "My mom told me," you clarified.  
  
"Did you know that, Rory?" she asked with fake awe.  
  
"Writing it down as we speak."  
  
"Taking notes. You're so good at that. It's freakish, but fabulous, considering I never write anything down, except on sticky notes, but I never remember where I stick them because they'll stick anywhere."  
  
Rory looked at you and grinned. "Yay for notes. I'm resourceful."  
  
That's true. She is.  
  
"Yeah, they're helpful..." you said, though you hated taking them in school, and referencing them to cram for tests. You never did like tests. Education doesn't come so easily to most as it does to Rory Gilmore. It's such a big part of her charm. Keeps things from getting boring or lacking stimulation of any kind. Always. No moment spent with her is stale.  
  
When you asked why the trays were never filled again, Lorelai took a deep breath to prepare for her speech, something you meant to recommend she do more often. "Okay, well, to get ice cubes from the tray you have to fill the tray and that means walking all the way over to the sink, way over there, and then coming back to the freezer and placing them in there. And then that leads to waiting until it's ice, and when you want an ice cube, you want an ice cube, and I don't really do things except when I'm in the mood for them right away - - "  
  
"Same here," Rory added.  
  
"You are so my offspring." Charmed by her quick response to match all the others in her life, Lorelai looked at you to see that you were amused and charmed as well.  
  
"But," you continued, "if you fill the ice trays in advance, right after the last time you empty them, then while you don't need any - - "  
  
"Well when do you really ineed/i ice cubes?" Lorelai cut in.  
  
"Except at a birthday party," said Rory, and you smiled secretly, then, remembering the short rendezvous with Rory at her birthday party to give her the bracelet she wore every day for so long. You wonder, now, where she puts it. If she's taken it with her to Yale.  
  
"Oh, right, but luckily Luke will come to your rescue - - "  
  
"Thank God," Rory added dramatically, just to be ridiculous. You always loved that about her, her timing to throw in humor that was always within her to be shared.  
  
"Yes," Lorelai went on, "Except that he might run into the mother, judgmental and jumping to conclusions because she can't stand not to seize a moment to ruin - - "  
  
"Ouch," Rory said in agreement.  
  
"Okay, so if you iwant/i ice cubes, if you put them in after the last time you take them out, then you'll have more when you want them."  
  
"That requires more of the going to and fro between where I'm standing and the freezer. You do realize that."  
  
I do now.  
  
Small ice cubes, the crushed kind, swarm about in your tall plastic cup, drowning in the liquid you haven't tasted. Now you don't want to. And then again you do.  
  
The meal is served, and it's being called lunch, as it is under the warmth of the sun in a sky headed towards afternoon.  
  
Chicken. Lindsey is having chicken. Not a beef girl. Why couldn't she be a beef girl? Why couldn't she be so many things?  
  
It isn't fair, the way you're comparing her to Rory, and you realize that with all your heart. It just isn't. A first love next to what symbolizes moving on. Who looks at the blackness surrounding a star?  
  
You're having chicken as well, the smell of it disgusting your unsettled stomach. You're sure you'll throw it up within an hour. Another highlight of the day. The two of you are so alike, so much so that sometimes it makes everything so plain, stripping away vibrant color and making things black and white. You'll share cake later, buried in so much icing, a dentist's nightmare. Cake should be enjoyed, savored, certainly not dreaded. Another aspect of the day, another thing that should be right and good turned upside down. Like your stomach; like your heart.  
  
Upside down, all the things that should have been. Things that will never be. Because you loved her, but it wasn't enough. She isn't here, ishe isn't here/i.  
  
She didn't come, and that's all you know.  
  
- -  
  
It's so sad, what you didn't see. What happened when you were gone.  
  
Late in the afternoon, long after you reigned in all your "just married" glory before the eyes of so many people who know nothing of what this day means to you, Rory came to the church. She did come, but she waited until it was too late. Purposefully waiting until you were gone.  
  
People were working outside with the baking sun on their backs, cleaning up after all the guests had gone. Picking up torn and fallen streamers from the ground, ripping down sagging multi-colored ones, stuffing them into trash bags as if they signified nothing. Ridding the outside of the town of the litter of plastic - - cups, silverware, plates. A slight breeze sent hair flying but a little, and scattered some leftovers of the party with the wind to clutter up the street that was deserted and silent. The town was quiet, very few people walking among the shops, eating at the diner, appearing a ghost town on this lazy summer weekend.  
  
Luke eyed the empty church from the front windows of his diner, pausing every now and then, thinking of what you slurred out the night before. Thinking of how he told Rory to stay away. Unsure if he saved her or betrayed you.  
  
She had watched, from afar, mixed emotions inside, her face not knowing what to show, if anything at all. Didn't matter; no one saw. And that was how she wanted it. Her private moment to think and mourn and... remember. She needed to obey the feeling that she was alone inside. She didn't want everyone else's happiness to clutter up her mind space, trapping her in to create a sort of claustrophobia.  
  
Solemn and silent, holding her head under water in that she was drowning.  
  
Small and meek, she crept into the church, intimidating and eerie in its silence. The heavy door shut behind her, sealing her inside. The air was cooler in the building, and she got a chill that raced down her spine like ice.  
  
i(Ice.)/i  
  
She took small steps forward along the aisle, passing so many pews on her way to the front. The scent of flowers from the large amount of them decorating the front of the church wafted to her, the sensation sweet to battle with the emptiness, the still cold dead inside, running through her veins. Blankness overtook her as she took a seat slowly in the very front pew, on the right, so very close to the aisle, as if making sure to have easy access to bolt if she needed to. And in fact she had to force herself not to. The ceremony of earlier still ghosted the building; she could feel it in the air around her. Air that she breathed into her lungs that a part of her wanted to cough back out.  
  
Tall rafters rose high above, just beneath the ceiling. A church so tall in a town of so few. Making special occasions all the more gargantuan, making them seem larger than life. And isn't a wedding as large as it gets?  
  
You know the answer to that now, though she does not.  
  
She was determined to be happy that her first love was happy... even if your happiness was because of someone else. She wasn't. going. to. cry. She bwasn't/b.  
  
And then she did.  
  
She's sorry. She's sorry. She didn't mean for things to turn out this way. In that sense, she shares your mind and your spirit and your heart. And in that way, you two are one.  
  
She wasn't as strong to stay still and stable as you, perhaps because she could leave, while you could not. The private moments in the church, masked in the silence, painful in the very air of the place were something she just couldn't bear.  
  
And when she couldn't stop crying, the flood of salt and water soaking skin time and again, she had to leave. She had to run. Somewhere far away from this pew, in this church, this building which now housed a memory that scalded her soul.  
  
The empty, hollow sound of her footsteps trailed in her wake, the staccato pitter-patter of her feet kind enough to disrupt the endless quiet. She kept track of the steps as frantically she sped up trying to make them stop while craving them just the same. One, two, three... nine... twenty-two... hours, days, years of pain rushing through her. Because she didn't reach out and pull her destiny back. She let you go, and as she reached the doors of the church and burst through them, she looked around and continued to flee, because right now there was no better place to be than away.  
  
Your thoughts exactly.  
  
- -  
  
end 


End file.
